Atlanta Hawks: Trae Young is the Offensive Fulcrum Atlanta Needs
By Chris Guest
Overall Impact
Clearly, Young is zooming past defenders to get to the rim and is frequently passing to open shooters on the perimeter. Also, he is often getting fouled. Though he trails Harden, DeRozan and Westbrook in free throw attempts per game via drives, that’s no surprise; those three players are among the best in the league at getting to the foul line.
Young is still in the top 20 in terms of the free throw attempts per game off drives (1.7 per game), but he is shooting a higher percentage (86.5%) than any of those three foul-drawing experts. Ice Trae gains confidence by grooving past defenders into the paint, then doesn’t mind absorbing contact in order to draw the foul.
In terms of catch-all metrics, Trae Young is providing Atlanta Hawks fans something to be excited about for the future, especially combined with JC and Red Pepper as well as the superfluity of draft picks the team will have going forward.
According to ESPN’s Real Plus/Minus, which usually makes rookie point guards look like utter trash, Ice Trae is Top 40 in offensive RPM with a 0.13 (though he is third-to-last in total RPM due to his truly abysmal defensive numbers… but that’s not what this piece is about!). While that number is not great, the RPM metric is colored considerably by the teammates a player is surrounded by.
BBall Index’s Player Impact Plus/Minus removes that caveat and Young’s performance according to that metric increases dramatically. Trae is 4th on the Atlanta Hawks in terms of offensive PIPM at -0.3, which is behind only Collins, Jeremy Lin and Huerter among qualified Hawks.